THE BEST QUOTATIONS FROM @HISTORYCRACKS.

Lawrence Osborne

This is what I have been reading/tweeting lately:

• Backpacking: just another twist in the history of Western voyeurism and exploitation (Tessa Hadley)
• Making love to an older man: you get the heavy hinterland of his worldly experience driven in behind the fine point of the moment (Tessa Hadley)
• Old carpets: have a sweet rancid sponginess that my English shoes like (Lawrence Osborne)
• Rowing: warmed him and made his back feel strong as if his shoulder muscles extended from his neck to his waist (David Mamet)
• End of story: The listeners felt as if they had let out a breath…and slowly began to rearrange themselves (David Mamet)
• Wealth: We wanted our American plenty to show, but not too much. We wanted to make it clear that our tastes were simpler than our means would have permitted (Wallace Stegner)
• People without a past of their own: Americans hang around national parks that enclose other people’s archeology (Wallace Stegner)
• Autism? He adopted an avuncular expression and squeezed my shoulder, one-two-three, an autistic mime of sincerity (Hari Kunzru)
• Intolerance: An address book filled with scribbled-out names (Hari Kunzru)

Stay tuned for another instalment of Kafka's letter to his father. Will post on Sunday.